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ECHOES 
OF DEMOCRACY 

Br 

EDWARD GRUSE 

Author of "Poems," "Songs and Talcs," etc. 




BOSTON 

THE GORHAM PRESS 

MCMXVIII 



Copyright, 1918, by Edward Gruse 



All Rights Reserved 



MADE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 



NOV i8 i9l8 






CONTENTS 

Page 

To the Statue of Liberty 7 

The Call 21 

The Broken Bow 31 

The Exodus 40 

Time's Burst of Dawn 42 

Forsaken 45 

The Desert Land 47 

Butterflies 50 

The Unknown Realm 51 

Famine 52 

Which? 53 

To France 54 

On the Recapture of Jerusalem 55 

To Harney Peak 55 

The Snow Fall 56 

They Shall not Pass ! 56 

To the Thrush 57 

To the Moon 57 

To the Eagle 58 

Out of the Old 58 

In the Cold 59 

To Venice 59 

Old Glory 60 



ECHOES OF DEMOCRACY 



TO THE STATUE OF LIBERTY 

What golden light yon garnishes the waves, 
Gilds with soft, velvety touch their foaming crests 
And o'er their ebbing flows like molten gold, 
Fresh poured o'er water lilies' undulating leaves? 
See how the radience casts its burning beams afar 
And leaps o'er billows to the mariner's sight, 
Leaps like forked lightning from the moonless sky, 
Illuminating with its sudden fire. 
The path of swollen rain cloud o'er the parched 

land. 
What star has newly risen from obscurity? 
Emerged from nebulous mists of magic voids, 
Shot forth from infinite recesses of unawakened 

dawns? 
Of old long-bearded prophets told of such d light. 
Of which the Lord oft whispered in their spellbound 

ears. 
By feathering on their ear drums with a stellar ray, 
Or tapping on their anvils with the moon's bright 

silver beam, 
Or by the sunset's splendor in the W^estern zone, 
When gorgeous hued clouds wooed the somber- 
footed night, 
Trailing her dusky garments o'er the flowering vale? 
And scattering fragrance from her dewy folds, 
Awakening a thousand slumbering harmonies 
Which but awaited for some signal key, 
When they burst forth in full tumultous melodies, 
Awelling up faint whisperings from that bourne, 
7 



8 Echoes of Democracy 

They oft petitioned, but could never fully know. 
The palsied poor, exchanging their last mite for 
bread. 
Grabbed without thanks by greedy, cold, close-fisted 

hands 
Dreamed of a light, which would illuminate, 
The parsimonious nook in selfish minds, 
And show them they are hoarding here, 
That which is least accredited in heaven, 
And leave untouched, rose tinted pearls, gems with- 
out price. 
Bright with tlie hue of heaven's lustrous smile. 
Downtrodden generations, with a million wrongs, 
To curse the tyranny, which tread them down. 
Prayed that some such a spark may permeate 
The darkness of black machination's cloud 
And kindle mercy in the despot's stony heart. 
Now time has brought thee from its hoarded 
depths 
Unlocked by persecution and by blood. 
Shine! Pierce the gloom of an enslaved world, 
Pierce interlunar reaches of primeval night, 
That Night mare's vampire may not hold us thrall. 
Thus are fulfilled those centuries of dreams. 
Which lead that hero, weighted with the thought 
Of unknown kingdoms slumbering unrevealed. 
To brave the perils of unnavigated seas. 

Light ushered in the new world to the old 
world's e\es, 
For to the admirals' gaze, the alien shores 
Swam with the beacon that would ever be 
The emblem of the world's democracy. 



Echoes of Democracy 



Oh bursting dawn of all the dawns of time' 
Then hundred men rushed to the deck half-dazed, 
Men, wan with hopes long lost, 
Stought men, gaunt, tempest-tossed. 
Men, who in those weeks crowded fateful years 
Men, gray from days of wild, demoniac fears, 
Men, tortured with the wracking, haunting dread, 
That they would glide from ocean's uttermost 

bound, 
Into abysmal chasms, where powers no more 
Impelled the winds to breathe upon the spheres, 
Drove suns to gyrate in their intrenched orbs, 
Which now glared swooning on stale, stagnant seas. 
Where gaping space itself would gasp for room 
And time could turn the emptied glass no more. 

How breathless, mute, they stood, 
Eyes straining for a glimpse of land, 
Conjecturing what bewildering wonders new 
May be enfolded in the rosy lap of dawn 
When she unrobed herself unto the blushing East 
Unbosoming her secrets to that rising orb. 
Who with one regal glance ubiguitous 
Dissolves the fairy fabric of night's magic web 
And on the forehead of awakened morn 
Emblazoned there a million-jewelled crown. 

Ah how they blessed their fearless admiral then. 
How they carei^sed him in transported joy. 
How they exalted e'en the hem of his salt-laved 

gown, 
From which beamed haloes of divinity. 
But yesterday in frenzied mutiny, 
In wild delirium of a mad despair, 



lO Echoes of Democracy 

They seized him with loud cries, "Overboard!" 
Now seemed he some miraculous wonder-working 

seer, 
Some prophet towering o'er their minion minds, 
Who safely piloted their perilous pilgrimage. 
Through shark-teethed waves and through sea ser- 
pents' crushing coils. 
The admiral stood there silent, while the tears, 
Through which thought cast the first world-wide 

surveying glance, 
Showed by their rainbow hues what in his bosom 

swelled. 
While through his surging veins there pulsed again 
The ghosts of struggling years and poignant pangs 
Of harsh rebukes gnawed at his heart once more. 
Here was the dream that he so long had dreamed; 
Here was the light that lit his clairvoyant soul; 
The light that wise men mocked, that ruler? ridi- 
culed ; 
The light that would enlighten future worlds, 
Embellish thrones to which he bowed unheard. 
Now will they hold his name in hateful scorn ^ 
Will school boys hoot him on the street? 
Will old men spurn him as he passes by? 
Will learned men denounce him as a lunatic 
And churchmen shun him as a heretic? 

He'd show them who possessed the mad man's 
brains ; 
He'd shou' them why he stood a towering mountain 

peak 
Amid the taunting jeers of fellow countrymen. 
Who lived in costums old as time is old. 



Echoes of Democracy II 

On liim as on the lofty mountain peak 

God smiled and whispered eons of subjected truths. 

And who can clip the wings of soaring truth? 

Entomb it in a vaulted sepulchre, 

Or laugii out its existence by a thick-lipped laugh? 

Its shorn wings feather out in fuller plumes. 

It spiings like lightning from confining tombs 

And plants chagrin on laughter e'er the echo dies. 

No ruthless barbarism can trample down its fanes, 

No superstition banish it by dungeon gloom 

Or by the torturous fire of the stake. 

How wondrous welcome that prophetic light 
Streamed on those sails from earth's far hemisphere. 
First greeting of the new world to the old 
And in that greeting beamed a world's new morn. 
For ages slumbering in dark ocean's arms, 
It lay there like a giant, fondled child. 
Petted with many a soft, caressing tide. 
And soothed by the gentle lappings of the bays, 
And many rivers spread their silvery streams 
Over the verdant bosom of her plains, 
Embellishing them with their forked winding ways. 
Full many conjured cloud from vaporous caves 
Created in the airy dome of space, 
Refreshed the inland prairies with their summer 

showers, 
As if the ocean wished to revel in such charms alone 
And leave the savage with his dozen tribes. 
Chase down the wild beasts there forevermore 
In endless wilderness of wood and plain. 

What recompense did flattering reward, 
Snail-footed dispenser of rosy promises. 



12 Echoes of Democracy 

Pour round the brow of this uncrowned adventurer, 

This bold discoverer of unknown worlds? 

I'he sword, impatient with its keen edge sheathed, 

Cuts itself into popularity with its own edge. 

Clipping the laurels with the selfsame blow 

That forged its undisputed might in power, 

Accomplishments of mind, reserved and shy 

Must wait until the superstitious, wary world, 

Rutted in customs, old as thought is old, 

Wakes up an opes its eyelids to the dawn. 

And tears away the veil of darkness with which she 

Enwraps herself to hide her childish fears 

From the mysterious working of the miiverse, 

Which she not knowing trembles at and fears. 

Uplift the world with altruistic soul, 

And slow-winged fame comes perching on your bier, 

Tickle men's minds with cheap chicanery 

And you've won instant notoriety. 

Old world rank with your foul diplomacit^s, 
Jealous of faintest breath of liberty, 
Which like a breeze on flowers may make their hues 
Eager to shed their fragrance on more spacious 

fields, 
Or like unopened hearts, touched by sweet mercy's 

hand, 
Unlock their chambers to the soft, uplifting light. 
Old world, which thrust this daring soul in chains, 
Who for you sails unfurled and found new worlds, 
This act was e'er the birth of liberty, 
For through tlie echoing valleys loud it rang, 
From river's marge it echoed wrathfully, 
And from the sheeted water of the lake 



Echoes of Democracy 13 

It rolled back to the leafy forests "omber depths, 
That never more in all that stretk'* of shore, 
Could tyranny set foot with its enSxuving chains. 

No sigh of bondage finds enraptured voice 
In breath of breezes blowing o'er free lands, 
Where scoffed at freedom, raises scornful frown 
From tcndcrest flowers, flushed with fragrant hues. 
The slumbering hills rise in volcanic rage 
At slightest shadow of oppression's cloud, 
Transforming sunlight to the lightning's fire 
And roar back with wrathful thundering. 
The vibrant echoes to the valley's depths, 
Where not well domiciled in paradisical haunts. 
Rolls o'er the plains an exile's haven to find, 
But snatched up by the whirlwind's scornful might 
And torn to tatters by its furious blast. 
Seeks refuge in the forest's verdurous gloont. 
Where murmuring boughs whispering words of 

scorn. 
Send it chagrined forth from its shadowy bowe's 
And to the ocean piloting its riddled wings, 
Finds that its ceaseless roar, forevermore. 
Is but the groaning of a vanciuished exile's tomb. 

Oh endless winding valleys, gorgeous vales, 
Where blessed tranquility startles at the breath 
Of violets' evening fragrance on the breeze. 
Illimitable forests wild, where no ear hears 
The deer's swift canter o'er the autumn leaves; 
Where giant mountain peaks befriend the moon 
And with their belts of glacier, chain themselves 
To earth to keep their sublime poise among the 
clouds. 



14 Echoes of Democracy 

Oh land of thousand streams let loose from hills 

That they might make the jointed wheat grow tall 

And put in apple blossoms brighter hues ; 

Oh trellised mossy bowers, where the mocking bird, 

Consummate melodist of startling airs, 

Charms mid-day breezes into silence by the trill 

Of amorous love songs bursting from some hidden 

bough, 
Beneath whose shaggy arms, the opening flowers 
Fill all the leafy dells with fresh perfume. 
Oh later Eden, how triumphant in democracy, 
How blissful in unconscious liberty. 

There are the endless rolling prairies, like 
An untamed sea with its once surging billows stilled. 
For ages frozen in their last upheaval, mute, 
But glorious in their static, congealed state. 
Still rippling o'er their brows, luxuriant grasses 

green, 
Dance to the West wind's soft susurrant monody, 
And on the sunlit slopes, knee-deep in meadows 

wide. 
The herds browse peacefully on luscious grass 
Or filled, lie down through sultry heat of noon. 
While like a fairy host the clouds sail by 
Borne on the pinion of their magic wings 
And cast cool shadows o'er the heated land. 

Ye teeming plains, cut with the plow's deep share 
As the wild main is plowed by liner's prow 
And crossed by many furrows here and there 
As fields were laid out by the pioneer. 
There ripening grain lifts high its golden head 
Or bows down gently to the treasured load. 



Echoes of Democracy 15 

There reapers clatter in these waving mines of gold, 
And lay the 3ellow sheaves on stubbles glowing in 

the sun, 
While bare-armed gleaners with perspiring brows 
Heap up the long rows in the sultrj' harvest heat. 
And on the gathered sheaves, the silent bree/^e 
With arms full of fragrance lies asleep. 
The tasseled maize gleams there row after row, 
Now half-aslumber in the bright, unclouded sun, 
Then gently tossing its awakening arms 
It rustles blandly in the passing gust. 

Breathed from the shaded valley, where the groves 
Sway round the farmstead in their summer glee. 
Foul famine with its jutting eyes and hollow cheeks 
Will never flap its skeleton wings here, 
Nor ragged want reach out its skinny hand 
Hiding its tattered scandals from men's sight the 

while. 
Like massive clouds far-pillared against the sky. 
The mountains, basking in the sun's majestic beam 
Rise in their stern, colossal sublimity. 
Their giant shoulders wrapt in purple clouds. 
Which sift their glistening snows upon their hoary 

heads 
And crown them on their bleak, eternal thrones, 
With crowns of silver studded with bright stars. 
Sublimely towering in propitious heavens at times, 
Then when the lurid lightning cleaves the livid sky 
Ri\ing the air with sudden burst of flame. 
And leaps from peak to peak in fitful rage 
And echoes of wild thunder are thrown back 
From cliff to cliff with prolonged resonance, 



1 6 Echoes of Democracy 

Thej' stand their fierce conductors of the storm, 

AVith magic baton, lengthening out this flash 

Or checking that, or making that loud peel more 

loud 
And muffling that one with their Titan hands. 
Giant guardians of earth's housed treasures they, 
Coal in whole plains make floors on which they 

stand, 
The silvery seams hold down their mantle'^" folds 
And glowing gold bejewels their hidden hands. 
Beyond the mountains, oceans with their cease- 
less roar, 
Forever battle with the unrelenting shores, 
Rolling their billows round the stubborn cliffs, 
Or piling up vast sand-bars in their unquelled rage. 
As if enangered that unmovable earth 
Should fix a limit to their boundaries. 
Broad streams, like silvery serpents, glide 
Through fertile plains and o'er the rolling prairies 

wild. 
And brooks enfringed with mossy coolness and the 

breath 
Of violets slumbering on their sedgj' brinks, 
Lose their soft windings in the thicket's maze. 
Now calm the sea, now stirred by whirlwinds' might, 
Its bosom ruffles in the storm's wild sweep, 
And dashing spray against the darkened sky 
Fierce wrestles with the anger of the winds 
As if to show beneath its glassy depths 
Hot fury lurks, when once its wrath is roused. 
AVhat mighty fleets plow through the parting foam, 
Flowering their pathway with its lily hues; 



Echoes of Democracy 17 

What endless cargoes back and forth across its 

bosom pi}', 
Unload their stores and load up waiting freight 

again. 
Ten thousand sails bound for all marts of trade, 
Ten thousand laden prows returning to their ports 

again. 
Beside the shore the nation's pulses throb, 
Those feverish hearts hot beating evermore, 
And with their ceaseless moil, a busy hum 
Of thousand industries fills all the air, 
The wheels of which but murmur "on and on." 
Here flows the treasures of the snow-capped hills. 
Here gathers all the riches of prairie empires, 
Here pours the wealth of teeming, fertile plains, 
And once transformed by magic processes, 
By magic mills turned by invisible fairy hands 
Is sent broadcast again in manifold form.s. 
From deep-delved stone the malleable iron flows. 
From flinty ore streams forth the mellow gold, 
From the sheep's fleece the broad cloth fibre glows. 
And from the worm's woven cocoon, 
Is reeled the silk that rustles in the princess' gown. 
Oh fitful feverish hearts, forever wake. 
Forever throbbing as if on your pulse 
Hung destines of uncreated worlds. ^ 

O'er all this vast dominion, blessed Liberty 
Unfurls its banner's folds, unsullied to the breeze. 
The mountains, massive and majestical, 
Look from their watch towers on the emblem's hue. 
And check the arm of frightful insolence 
Before it leaves its ugly imprint there. 



Echoes of Democracy 



The plains and prairies wave their groves and 

grains, their grass 
In adoration of the bright unquenchable light! 
The valleys echo paeons in its praise, 
Borne on the amorous odors of fresh fragrance 

mild, 
While clouds in exultation flash forth fire. 
And loose the thunders from their cavernous abodes. 
Stern voice of heaven in approval loud. 

Triumphing hymning loud above discordant 

chants ! 
Oh how delightfully j'our echo falls 
Upon delirious ears of an awearied world, 
Like glorious chant of nightingale to him who comes 
Home from lone wandering in Sahara sands. 
Oh light, which never wanes! Oh wondrous beam' 
How sweetly falls your lustre on the upward 

looking eye, 
As precious as some sudden bursting beam 
Through dusty crevice of a dungeon wall, 
To him who lanquishes on its dark floor, 
As welcome as the land, which dawn upheaves 
To shipwrecked sailor's dim, despairing eye. 

The world beholds the light for lo, they come ! 
The beam restored the sight to blinded eyes, 
Long hooded by dread spectres of a tyrant's wand. 
A seething horde, a motley throng they come, 
Oppressed fugitives from land of heartless Czars, 
Where despotism says the word and life is stilled ; 
Broad-shouldered Teuton, whose humanity 
Has long been sacrificed on altars of a soulless 

state ; 



Echoes of Democracy 19 

The sun burned denizens of Southern climes 
From whose dark eye soft romance loves to peer 
On unexpressed love-intrigues but new dreamed ; 
And stout men of the bleak and frozen North 
On whose broad brow adventure sits with plans of 

new exploits. 
Smiles play upon their lips with bright uplifting 

beam, 
As round thcni pour the odorous fragrance of free 

aris. 
A hundred races here, brush elbows in the crowd, 
Gaze in each other's eyes and feel at home. 

And may those tiger passions, which in their 

home land, 
Ongoaded by oppression's prod, gnawed at their 

heart 
And sought a vent by some revengeful stroke, 
Some mad act of infuriated minds. 
Be blown back o'er ocean and from salty depths, 
Snapped up by shark teeth and there find a grave, 
Or by the weir-wolf in his weedy lair 
Crouching for chances to feed fury more. 
Barbarian instincts wild ; fierce traits of savagery, 
And serpent looks of sinister dealings foul, 
And vandalism's fell, unquenched lust. 
May they be chained to the embarking shores 
Ne'er to sink poisonous fangs into our budding hopes. 
Thus thou great Goddess, brushing the blue skies 
With thine eternal arm upheld aloft. 
So that mankind may see thine ever shining beam, 
Which with electric sparkling lights the world, 
Art the glad light for which the prophets prayed, 



20 Echoes of Democracy 

Light which stars envy on their diamond thrones, 
Pouring their radiance forth to make thy lustre dim. 
The veiled moon, half-hidden behind clouds. 
Fearing to lose its beaming in thy brighter beam 
Shows not its brillliance, while thy full flood flows, 
For coeternal with the sun thou art, 
Since it's the darkened world thy radiance doth 

illume. 
Shine! Pierce the gloom of an enslaved world! 
Show lustful kings how hatred's gnashing teeth, 
May be unfanged by gentle touch of love, 
How swords no more may leave their sheath? for 

blood, 
And how a thousand years of peace may come. 



Echoes of Democracy 21 

THE CALL 

I looked on earth's green pastures and the soft, 
Luxuriant splendors of the golden valley's mellow 

haze, 
Diffused like new burned incense o'er their verdant 

depths; 
The lofty grandeur of the snow-capped peaks 
Bare forehead, round whose dreamy temples hang 
Caressing wreaths, wove by the fingers of the wind ; 
The sober sound of seas, forevermore 
Resounding round bare, bleak, immovable cliffs, 
Which push the mad waves back with Titan hands 
Or battling roar, while fleeing from the hurricane's 

wild might ; 
The stretch of streams through broad, illimitable 

plains, 
With liquid voice attuned to rustling of the corn 
Whose rootlets feed upon their limped bays. 
And to the sighing of the sunlit grass, 
Which, decked in green, smiles on the water's blue, 
Thrilled me with adoration for the glories of this 

world. 
Inspired me with the wondrous possibilities of life. 

I saw the roses blushing to behold 
Their tints reflected in the moon beam's silvery 

smile. 
And tender violets abashed to feel their blue 
Kissed by the balmy lips of dewy airs, 
Immaculate lilies bless the new-born breeze 
That shook the dust from off their ivory leaves. 



22 Echoes of Democracy 

I heard the thrush pour forth his golden notes 
Unto the gorgeous splendor of a sunset sky, 
Melodious music blending with harmonious hues. 
The wondrous mocking bird charm with its 'Strain 
The climbing moon from out a curtaining cloud. 
Oh peaceful earth ! Triumphant mother of ex- 
ultant life, 
Serene as thine own slumbering lakes in which the 

hills 
Lave their hot feet the sultry summer long; 
In which the gnarled oaks for centuries 
Have watched their branches wrestle with the wind 
And sprinkled acorns round the pebbly brink ; 
In which the passing cloud looks with a flattering 

eye, 
High-housed aloft on unseen pinnacles of air 
And pauses to arrange its shaggy, wind blown form ; 
In which the moon casts down each night its maiden 

beam 
To see if it has waned the long day through. 

But as beneath the slumbering surface of the 
■ sea 
The savage shark, plows through its salty depths 
Blood in his eye, death gnashing from relentless 

teeth. 
As deep beneath the petals of the fragrant rose 
The ravenous worm blights its fresh budding bloom, 
As into starlit folds of quiet flocks 
While sleep has spread its poppy on the shepherd's 

brow 
The fierce wolf leaps with murder raving on his 

foaming jaws, 



Echoes of Democracy 23 

So in the heart of civilization's ripening flower, 
A fiend, while slyly sipping of its honey dew 
Was burying its poisonous fangs unseen 
Producing cankerous growth upon the very bud 
From which kind nature many taints removed. 
A Mephistopheles, yea, bargaining the soul 
Of peaceful, loving realms, approved of heaven 
For resurrected dreams of might and world domain, 
Which long had been exiled from non-barbarian 

minds 
And slept for ages in self-sealed sepulchres 
With outworn creeds and outlived principles. 

What sound with gentle heaving sighs 
So somberly prophetic round my listless ears, 
Like murmur of some cosmic heaving, dreamily 
Reverberated in the pearly labyrinth 
Of some contorted conches rosy beaded hall 
Incrystaled on some calm bay's winding marge, 
Bathed in the splendor of a full moon's ray? 
Is it some bold manoeuvre of a Titan God 
Eternally enthroned on some gyrating sphere? 
Some swinging of his hand, some tossing of his head, 
Which vibrates through etherial spaces thus? 
Or night mare groans escaping from his breast. 
Terrific blasts within their range, but spreading out 
Into remoter space, fade and become 
But infant's sighs, a momentary breeze 
Caused by the flapping of a butterfly's soft wing? 

And as I listen, swimming into view, 
A star with bright meteoric flash, 
With sudden illumination of the skies 
Darts through the frozen depths of unmapped zones, 



24 Echoes of Democracy 

And leaves a path like bright wine poured, 
From ancient jars in which long seasons stored, 
Upturned by swart hand of some suave Egyptian 

queen. 
Undimmed still the glow bright glimmers these, 
Like brilliant flickering of Northern Lights 
On cold eternal snows of arctic zones. 
It stays as if it were some sacred scroll unrolled 
By unseen hands and vvlth a glowing jewel pin- 
ned 
Upon the silver beams of some convenient star. 
And now a blazing comet brushes out its flimsy 
tail, 
Erratic wanderer among more constant spheres, 
Befeared Leviathan of unbounded space, 
So flagrant in its sudden forwardness 
As if it would dash Vesper from his throne 
And swish a dozen more enthroned stars. 
From out their old, unchangeable orbit's course 
With one swift, million-miled swing 
Of its mushroom appendage thinned out over space, 
Like firey banner streaming in the air it rushes on. 
Leading invisible forces o'er highways of heaven. 
Passing the constellations with such wild terrific 

sweep, 
It fans their fires into a brighter blaze. 
And widely opens their eyes in a bewildered gaze. 
And now dark clouds with their own fury swollen, 
Pregnant with churning tempest's untried might 
Rise and spread o'er the beacon's brilliant beam. 
Chaffing like Phaethon's steeds the prancing leaders 

fly, 



Echoes of Democracy 25 

Wild Boreas guiding them with streaming winds, 

for unseen reigns, 
Urging them on with forked lightning's lash 
And with the roar (if thunder's trembling might. 
And as the chariot thunders o'er the echoing airs, 
Up flash the glowing sparks beneath the whifing 

wheels ; 
Forth shoots the lurid lightning, like silverv veins 
Phosphorescent in the ebony fabric of the skies. 
Up higher, higher in tiie heavens they roll, 
Purple with wrath and green with fierce destruc- 
tion's scourge, 
And surge on near the fields of easiest toll, 
To fury goaded by the whirlwind's caged wrath. 
Lashed by chain lightning's intermittent scourge, 
y\nd ilred by uncontrollable electric might. 
Let loose from vaporous caves the thunders roll 
Their deafening challenge to the couchant earth 
Which hides its trembling life beneath its spreading 

wing, 
While round the peak already whirls the hurricane 
And tearing from its roots the aged ash 
Bears it aloft o'er valleys and o'er hills. 

Oh terrifying rumbling! Ominous sound! 
Oh dread subaltern groans, blent with the din 
Of thunders deafening roar and swish of lashing 

hail. 
No sigh now plays about my fully wakened ears: 
No breeze produced by flap of butterflies' soft wings 
Bears incense to my well awearied nerves. 
Tis now the tremor of an earthquake's might, 
Tossing men's temples in a playful rage, 



26 Echoes of Deinocracy 

The roar of fierce volcano's resurrected wrath, 

Rejuvenated, after quiet suns for centuries. 

Have basked their rays within the cratered depths 

Beneath its seething pit the while 

Its smothered anger smoldered with its might un- 

quelled, 
What is that nimble form, which suddenly shoots 
Forth from the darkness of contending elements, 
And dashes like a roe, torn by pursuing hounds, 
Like bleeding fawn by eagle's talons clawed. 
And at my side exhausted halts her race, 
While from her eyes delirious glances leap 
And on the paleness of her cheek with merciless 

hold. 
Pain gloating on her agony, twitches and writhes? 

Her hair disheveled by the furious blast 
As if escaping fear cling to her shoulders close. 
From out of the depths of tears, which on her cheeks, 
Gleam like dew on shrouds of belated ghosts. 
Whom morning frightens with its rosy gleam, 
Fright stares with wild delirious glancing eves. 
While at its side despair lags with bowed head. 
The red drops, trickling down her bruised breast 
Are not the crimson of a sunset sky, 
Fresh poured o'er clouds of delicate intricacies. 
But is the glare alighting all the murky skv, 
On midnight when alarmed citizen's behold their 

homes ablaze. 
With arms extended she kneels and passionately 

pleads. 
"Oh where is there a refuge on the turbulent 

earth ? 



Echoes of Democracy 27 

Where is Compassion's feathered pillow on which I 

May rest my bruised and unmantled head? 
Where is caressing balm's soft mitigating touch 
To which these wounds may plead for soothing 

myrrh ? 
My unprotected hands have left their warm blood 
Upon tiie edge of cold Damascus blades, 
My body has been blown upon the thorns of life. 
And pierced by briers of inhumanity 
My feet are blistered by the sharp-edged stones 
O'er which I fled on long and treacherous ways, 
My eyes in which the tear of sorrow clings 
Grow dark, as darksome as the fiends pursuing 

me." 
"Where are the jewels, which once my breast 

adorned ? 
Ah lost and widely scattered in the mad foray. 
Jewels, plucked not greedily from mankind's hand, 
But given me for services rendered humanity. 
Here hung a sapphire, truth awarded me, 
Here blazed a ruby golden love hung there, 
There glowed an agate duty wooed me with. 
There shone an emerald courage fastened there. 
Protect me and the loss of these I'll make seem 

small. 
For newer services I'll render men, 
VV^ill make all coral reefs beneath the waves. 
Inadequate to price your gratitude. 

Oh help me or I perish, I faint, I bleed. I die, 
Breathe on these wounds some fragrant balm, 
Distilled from nectars of flowers' frankincense, 
Seasoned by animated fragrance of generous souls; 



28 Echoes of Democracy 

Stop up this blood with bright, ungilded lily leaves 
Of mercy garnered in a true, unselfish heart. 
Anoint my feet, my hands, with holy oils of sympathy 
Still unpolluted by the fangs of hate ; 
Press on my feverish brow a dewy wreath, 
Braided by friendly fingers of benevolence 
And dipped into cool fountains of unselfishness, 
Oh find some balm! My brain with fever burns! 

Nowhere is respite, dragons of the air 
Dart at me with tiieir avaricious beaks, 
If refuge beckons me to harbor there; 
Fierce serpents of the sea, hell hounds turned loose, 
Mad weir-wolves, hybrids of weird mongrel brutes, 
Rend my poor bosom, if my bark of grief I sail 
Upon its blue for solace and repose. 
On land the bavonets' gleam, the shriek of bursting 

shell. 
Break in upon my momentary solitudes, 
Making my life successions of grim agonies. 

Oh find me refuge, harbor me 
Within the bosom of thine old time love!" 

E'er I could stoop to soothe her burning brow. 
And breathe a world of comfort to her soul, 
I saw a million muscular arms outstretched 
Unto her bleeding, mutiliated form 
And from the gathering throng a shout uprose, 
"Blessed Liberty we hear thy cry, we come. 
Fly to our arms, we'll harbor thee. 
We'll find a refuge for thy bruised limbs 
And plunge a dagger in the cruelty. 
Which hounded thee o'er dizzy, treacherous ways. 
In Belgium were your powers paralized, 



Echoes of Democracy 29 

By brutal onslaughts of vainglorious savagery ; 

In Northern France thy tender arms were bruised 

By piercing briers of cruel barbarity ; 

In Poland were thy sides bedaggered thus 

By heartless spears of inhumanity ; 

In Servia were thy feverish brow unwreathcd 

And on them pressed a crown of piercing thorns. 

Oh fly into our arms, we'll be thy vassal knights, 

Thy proud protectors and fair proteges." 

We saw the talons of inhum.an torture gripe 
Her innocent form and stood too horrified to strike 
An enraged blow at fierce oppression's frightful- 

ness. 
We heard her call but to the pity of her cries 
No response came from our astonished lips. 
Distraction drew a veil before our eyes 
That in our lethargy we could not see truth's 

awfulness, 
And listlessness stuffed languor in our ears 
That terrible sounds were but a fairy's stir, 
Within the perfumed atmosphere of shaded dells. 
Not till she swept upon us like a fleeing dove. 
With red drops dripping from her bruised brow, 
Did we awaken to the consciousness of her despair. 
Where is the pale faced courage that would 

shrink 
From kissing this devoted lady's lily hand 
She would outstretch for routing her cruel scvi 

tors ? 
Where is procrastinating fear that still will stare 
Into the heavenly blue of her wild, pleading eye. 
Out of whose depths smiles of celestial gratitude 



30 Echoes of Democracy 

Would beam on those, who wrested her from brutal 

foes? 
Where's unawakened duty, that will sit 
With arms folded at the feet of negligence 
And puff his pipe, while through the stricken world, 
Ruin runs riot and like a willful child 
Now devastates that which he cherished formerly? 
Then rescue with its subdued anger all aflame, 
With keen determination in its flashing eyes. 
Raises its strong right arm in firm command 
And leads the host against the hated tyranny. 
Nay not as conqueror it comes, for flash of swords 
No more has bright reflection in the smiles of 

heaven, 
But from the angry spark of non-approval's brow 
Is flashed back with the glow of stern reproof 
As signal of outlived necessity, 
For fame and honor no more deck the swotd with 

laurel wreathes'. 
No, not as conquerors, but as a force 
To pluck the cankerous growth from out th.=^ world, 
So that no more it bursting will deluge 
Earth with the blood of innocence and purgatory of 

pain. 



Echoes of Democracy 31 

THE BROKEN BOW 

I watched the sun spread out its golden hands 
And scatter flakes of emerald on the bosom of the 

clouds, 
And hang his scarlet draperies aloft 
Upon the rosy pinions of their brightening hues 
Thus curtaining off the world in which he ha? en- 
throned 
Dew sceptered sleep and soft-crowned, unrobed rest, 
From that celestial realm, which still he sweeps 
With undimmed radiance of eternal eyes. 
I saw his flaming head with glowing locks 
Lean on the sapphire pillars, shooting forth 
From gentle Hashing of the mountain's lily brow, 
And wrapping o'er his form the folds of clouds 
Breathes forth a poppied incense on the darkening 

world 
And like an actor, showered with rosy wreathes 
Retires serenely from his boundless stage. 

Upon the rosy bosom of the clouds, 
I see the fires of our race aglow. 
Not passion, puffing with hot nostrils wide, 
Nor beaming hope with lustrous eyes aflame, 
But drops of life blood oozing from our weakening 

veins 
Which throbbing with vitality once laughed 
To see the terror-stricken usurper 
Flee from the pathway of our arrow's deadly flight. 
And in the red rays of the mellowing sun 
I see our fainting spirit pine away 
And gasp for calm revivifying airs 



Echoes of Democracy 



Breathed from the golden valleys of fair hunting 

grounds. 
No more will noonday suns, look on our noon of 

life 
With fresh hope beaming from his undiminished 

ray, 
With vigor brimming o'er the cup of unaccomplished 

deeds 
And faith with beckoning hand \^'ave on 
Exulting spirits to valorous deeds. 
The noonday of our life is past and xvnv 
We languish ever in the sunset's passive maze 
Through which the luring hand of distant shades 
Reach forth with gestures of suspended doom. 
No more the languid moon rubs dew drops 

from his eyes 
When blinded by the Hood of heaven's light 
And sends a laughing beam down through the leafy 

boughs 
Upon our campfires revelry or on the din 
Of trampling war dance with its dreaded whoop, 
Or on the wreathed smoke ^v-here quiet peace 
Sat curled and hearkened to our intercourse. 
No more the sleepless stars on sum.mer nights 
Watch o'er our slumbers and make pleasant dreams 
Lead off our spirits to far fairy lands, 
And guard our wigwams from avenging foes. 

The white man's way is not the red man's way. 
Nor is the red man's way the white man's way. 
'I'he pale face boasts of blessed democracy, 
Which no man yearns for but what he is froe, 
Yet stronger nations still enslave the weak. 



Echoes of Democracy 33 

Captivity blinks at us with its downcast eye 
And da^'gcr jjlanccs furrowin;; eternal wounds 
Through injured pride, burns flaming through our 

brain. 
Chained freedom pines within its dungeon walls 
i\nd gropes about for sweet deliverance, 
While weight of cumbersome customs and alien 

laws 
Mang on our soul's affliction, as a cage 
Fetters the spirit of the wild bird's joyous note. 
Now calls the great White Father from his East- 
ern home, 
And says the dogs of war arc ravishing the earth. 
That nations are imperiled b^- great woe 
And libert\ 's loved strong hold is assailed, 
1 hat on the top of civilization's pinnacle 
Delirium sits and at the head of reason hurls 
I Vead thunderbolts of grim defiance down, 
That on the cushion of sweet mercy's seat 
Fierce hate with foaming jaws apart, loud snarls 
And at the lily bosom of unrevengeful love 
Flashes his fangs with wild looks in his staring eye. 
Vo us what are the white man's jealousies? 
^Vhat are the profound reaches of his delving mind^ 
^Vhat are the arched temples with their marble 

halls 
In which proud beautv sits enthroned, Narcissus 

like 
And pines at its own beaming loveliness 
Fcflected in resplendant mirrored walls? 
^Mi.it are the flights <.>f \'int:i or of An'relo 



34 Echoes of Democracy 

Who breathed life in cold marble or on canvas 

blazed 
Dreams slumbering in God's bosom centuries un- 

exprest ? 
What is the golden page in which lie sealed 
The precious life blood of a master spirit's muse? 
What are the speechless messages of air, 
The wheels of industry on which vain luxury 
Keeps its propelling fingers on? 
What are the dignities of jurisprudence with its 

pomp 
Where justice sits Avith scales aloft in hand 
Ready to weigh the differences of men? 

For us the full moon sprinkling his soft beams 
Upon our wigwam's willow-studded dome, 
The great trees reaching out their giant hands 
And with their subdued voices conjuring forth 
The dryads and the host of ariel's following 
Create more beauty for us than Venus to eager 

Grecian eyes. 
For us the pine trees strumming with their fragrant 

fingers on 
Invisible harp strings of the answering airs, 
Transcends the divine tones of superb symphonies 
Breathed from the soul of music and diffused 
By magic baton of a master's hand. 
The beaver and the bee, migrating birds, 
The hue of clouds the dew drops hanging on the 

rose. 
Sap oozing from the maple, changeful wail of winds. 
The ocean chaffing round unmovable cliffs. 
Teach us more wisdom than the white man's lore. 



Echoes of Democracy 35 

The fires of our heart tells us when we are wronged. 
The virtues of our souls tell us when others are in 

the right. 
No robed prelate need adjust our woes 
No pompous justice need redress our wrongs. 
For knowledge without wisdom's guiding light 
Oft stoops to folly's infelicities, 
While wisdom without learning's legended lorr 
Oft shuns the pitfalls of alluring snares. 

Now comes the call for our young men to bare 
Their bosoms to the fury of avenging hate 
To go where death grabs in its skeleton hands 
The fardels in which writhe convulsed wrath 
Eager, upon the lily breast of hope, 
To vent destruction's, fierce demoniac lust 
And shatter virtue with its furies wild. 
They're called to wade through rivers red with 

gore, 
In which hot, seething hate and anger surge, 
Let out of civilization's unprotected gate, 
A civilization, which uncivilizes still. 
For did not signs from heaven, the darkened sun, 
The thunder and the tremor of the shaking earth 
Flight of weird fowls, oft stay the hand of savage 

men? 
The pale-faced warrior fears not God, nor heeds not 

man. 
But tries to make his own meek might supreme. 
Therefore must fall before the spirit's wrath. 
Who seeks to transcend God, opens the door of 

hell. 



36 Echoes of Democracy 

There was a time we kept our bow strings tight 
And needed not much provocation from an emeny 
Before the rattle snake skin filled with arrows bore 
A challenge to the haughty trangressor. 
The fierce war whoop in which the race's wrath 
Pronounced its right unto the listening sky, 
Fell just as welcome on our wakening ears 
As the soft songs of feast and revelry. 
The quiver shouldered for the war path's bloody 

trail. 
In which the scalp was trophy of a victory, 
Was borne as gleefully as in the chase, 
AVhen like the wind we darted on the deer 
And sped our arrows faster than his flight. 
When the wild wolf repaired unto his den. 
Rather than show his teeth unto our bold advance; 
When the huge bear hied to the forest's depths 
Fearing to face our huntsmen's deadly aim. 

And when the fierceness of our strength was dead- 
liest, 
The sun was darkened by our arri)w's flight 
And like a storm cloud furrowing through the 

air 
Dealt havoc on the region where they fell. 
Oft were the moon beams pierced by their sharp 

edge, 
As on the perfumed air their course was steered. 
And starlight oft was shattered with their whirr 
As like a silver beam they glanced along. 
But now our bow is broken and unstrung 
The white man looks upon the sun and from its 
rays, 



Echoes of Detiiocracy 37 

Draws powers incomprehensible to the red man's 

mind. 
He looks upon the heavens and his big canoes 
Sail o'er the ocean safe to distant ports ; 
He looks upon the clouds and thunders roll; 
He digs into the earth and finds the fire 
That sends his bullets unseen through the air. 
He knows the power of the spirit's strength 
And now our bow has lost its ancient might. 

■ No, fear hangs not about our fallen brow, 
The sound of battle does not chill our blood, 
Nor does the war whoop of an enemy, 
Drive terror in our subdued soul, 
Nor has the strangeness of the white man's way 
Sapped out the strength of our vitality. 
But we are in the sunset of our life. 
The nightingale sings for us now and not the 

lark. 
The owl floats over us in noiseless flight 
Instead of the proud eagle glorying in his strength, 
The coyote howls for us his twilight call 
Where wolf was wont to snarl from daylight lair. 
And we should fight. Where is our land ? 
Where is our country? Where the land, where 

bees 
Once for our winter's larder honey stored? 
Where is the land, where endless woodlands wild 
Kept camp fires of our nation glowing bright? 
Where are the plains where first we sowed the 

maize 
And put the sweet potato in the ground. 
And tilled tobacco for our pipe of peace? 



38 Echoes of Democracy 

Where is the prairie over which the buffalo 
Roamed in the bright days of his flourishing 
Thick as the grass on which the great herds grazed? 
Where are the forests where the beaver built his 

dam 
And where the deer fled from our arrow's flight? 
Where are the autumn skies, through which in long 

profile 
The wild geese honked the whole day through? 
These realms were ours once. Long days and 

days 
We could trudge on and still could find no end 
Unto our vast dominions. Towards the East 
Where the great sun each morning rubs his dewy 

eyes 
And starts his journey cross the firmament, 
Good many moons could travel and still could not 

come. 
Unto the rosy land of sunrise ever fair. 
Unto the West, where every night the sun enfolds 
His form in ruddy folds of clouds, 
We could journey the flowery summer long 
And still not come unto the sunset land. 
Toward the South whence come the warm winds 
That puts the color in the fragrant rose, 
We could weeks wander and still could not come 
Unto the tropic land where the soft winds are 

caved. 
Toward the North whence come the chilly blast, 
That sifts the cold snows o'er the frozen land, 
We could on wander whole long seasons through 
And yet not come unto the land of snows. 



Echoes of Democracy 39 

And now men wonder why the God of war 
Steels not our arrows with their former might, 
With their unconquerable deadlines? of ancient 

times, 
Why hangs our quiver on the willow tree, 
And why our bow lies on the ground unstrung, 
But they do not consider that no more 
We battle for possession of our hunting grounds 
Or for the welfare of our enslaved race. 
They do not see that patriotic fire 
No more burns in our bosom as of yore ; 
They see not that we are an alien race 
Within the very land where once our nation thrived. 
The white man's spirit conjured ours away, 
fie comprehends things that we cannot know. 
He lifts his mighty hand and fires burn, 
fie looks upon the air and winds begin to blow, 
He talks to men a thousand miles away, 
He drives an iron horse around the world, 
And mingles with the clouds on woven wings, 
We comprehend his ways not and are doomed. 

The sunset of our days are come. The very 
glow, 
Which trembles on the bright clouds of the West, 
Also illuminates the farther Eastern gates 
Of our long cherished hunting grounds. 



40 Echoes of Democracy 

THE EXODUS 

Arise, ye pale faced hordes with hollow eyes, 
Shapes dusky with the darkness of your doom, 
Forlorn images of men that were ; 
Rise and look out upon the sunlit skies, 
No longer grown beneath hot, hobbling chains. 
The bolts have fallen from the dungeon doors. 

Ay, stand there stunned and speechless with sur- 
prise. 
With lips apart in mute astonishment. 
Ye tliat ne'er felt the thrill of freedom's throb, 
How can ye grasp the golden promises 
Of an eternal fete of liberty? 
A murmur, you went to Siberian wilds, 
A prayer for light and you were thrust in chains, 
A cry for freedom and your souls were doomed. 
Oh wonder not that whirlwinds of revenge 
Thus shook foundations of a tottering throne 
And let the light stream through these battered 
doors. 

There is a silence; a light in questioning eves; 
Spasmodic tears; a shuffling of the feet 
A tugging at the outlawed manacles. 
Then cries of exultation from the crowd 
Burst like a tluuuler peel upon the winils, 
"[lie plaudits of a throng of new-born men, 
Wild with new hopes, new dreams, new destines. 
A hundred thousand so\ils delivered! Thus 
Stern justice rises with its crushing might! 



Echoes of Democracy 41 

The rivers and the valleys and the steppes;, 
The cities and the forests and the fields, 
Rejoice as to their haunts the exiles file 
And in prophetic voices hail them thus: 
"1 destroy not, nor oppress, seek not revenge, 
Hut lead, and formulating dreams, fulfill 
The loftiest visions of your high ideals, 
Dreams borne of justice, honor and of truth 
And relegating passions, hatred, pride. 
Look for the best in men, which when you find. 
The worst will not be irremediable. 
Oh cherish well \'our new won liberties, 
Pregnant with unknown perils and new fears." 



42 Echoes of Democracy 

TIME'S BURST OF DAWN 

Downtrodden generations, million wrongs 
Curse loud the tyranny, which tread you down 
And keep the heel upon your liberty. 
That stoop, the world's unpardonable tragedy, 
Heaped up with scoffs and curses of proud ranV 
Which laughs to see your destines obscure, 
Bows with the burden of the centuries. 
Long slaves to autocratic regimes, 
Which but administers to selfish ends, 
And puppets to the despot's ruthless power, 
Which looks with lustful eye upon the world, 
By greater darkness pressed on in the dark, 
By weightier woes pushed deeper in your woe, 
How long will )'0u be minions to man's might? 

Age after age, but trampled on you more 
And hounded down each little spark of fire 
That kindling it might not blaze forth and show 
The plight that you for ages listless bore. 
Rut rouse the stupor from your misled minds, 
For by snail-paced degrees, the lingering light 
Fought back by darkness, blacker than the shad** 
Of the most terrible thought in freedom's breast, 
Has sent its ray upon truth's towering peak 
And lights despairing looks in hungry eyes. 

Oh ! God ! the long, long vigils hot with pain. 
The balmless miseries with downcast looks 
The heartaches, bittered by unjust rebukes. 
The ceaseless struggle with no goal in view, 



Echoes of Democracy 43 

Have put the pallor there, the vacant stoop, 
Which makes him like the things from which he 

sprang, 
An ape-like creature of the eons past. 
See how his hands reach downward toward the 

ground. 
The more his shoulders stoop, the brows slant back, 
The more he takes the form of things outlived. 
Oh lords take heed! some day these shapes will 

turn 
And torture you into ten thousand deaths, 
He cowers now, but some day he will strike, 

There are the splendors and the glories vea, 
The palace and the gorgeous promenade, 
The loaded larder and the flowing robes. 
The contumacious look on those below. 
While here lean hunger stalks with sunken eyes 
And tattered poverty shrinks back in shame 
And timid homage cowers at the feet 
Of those who can give life or quench its flame. 

Was this the dream that the creator dreamed 
When he laid out the empires of the world 
And peopled them by breathing clods to life? 
Were not they all raised from the dust equal 
And equal turn again unto the dust 
No favor shown to emperor or clown? 

Oh slumbering giant awake and burst thy chains. 
For thou art strong, but ignorant of thy might, 
And when the wrongs of thousand bitter years 
Rise in thy soul what bonds can hold thee down? 
For thou art then stern justice stirred to wrath 



44 Echoes of Democracy 

And Avhat can stand before thy fearful might? 
Awaken, yea, the light is on the hills 
The day light breaks, the time to strike has come. 
Let this be fullilled dreams, which prophets told 
"^he longed millennium, Time's Burst of Dawn. 



Echoes of Democracy 45 

FORSAKEN 

Where is the sunny South with perfumed breath, 
Which wafts its golden treasures on her charms? 
Where is the beaming East with laughing step 
W^hich from her alabaster temples lift 
The flaxen locks with gentle, amorous touch ? 
Where is the buxom spirit of the morn, 
Which on her cheek beams with its rosj' bloom 
And brims with ruddy freshness on her lips? 

Onced moved she with a swan like grace 
that charmed 
The very air in which her lithe limbs stirred ; 
Once gilded she her blushes with the hues 
Of roses prest 'twixt beauty's finger tips 
Until quintessence of rare loveliness 
Embraced her with immortal charms divine; 
Once painted she the ermine round her brow 
With powdered lily leaves, crushed by the flap 
Of fluttering moth's soft, noiseless, mealy wing. 
Hilarious notes of spring peeled in her laugh 
And summer suns beamed in her winsome smile. 
While in her voice the murmuring wind soft sighed 
And brooklets sunny echo suavely glowed ; 
Her tyts outshone the blue of summer skies 
When lanquid evening airs enfold the hills; 
Her brown locks made the rosy hue beneath 
Beam with transcendent beauty more divine ; 
Her darkest frown glowed with more loveliness 
Than the most artful smile of maiden's wiles. 



46 Echoes of Democracy 

But ah! alas! the silvery thread gleams there, 
The lustre leadens in her beaming eye, 
The rose bloom fadeth from her rosy cheeks. 
The lily coarsens to a shallower hue. 
Time has fled from his ivied balcony, 
Where pleasure long caroused imm.une from care, 
Where beauty languished, fed on thoughts of love. 
Where poppied dreams looked out upon the vorld 
And magical wonders sprang from, charmed thought, 
And perching at the portals of decay 
Sits with his ugly visage, serpent like 
Eager to leave his imprint on the cheek 
Which shudders most at his disfiguring hand. 
September winds blow on the buds of May 
And sere the green leaf with its autumn breath. 
No more the South wind wafts from fragrant zones, 
The buoyant airs of j'outhful languishment. 
But from the North, the blustering storms sweep 
And spring-time freshness, summer beauties fade. 

Deliriously, with looks forlorn, she grasps 
At vanishing fleetness of her fleeing charms 
Like ghost-like arms embracing fleeting mists, 
Impalpable to touch of grasping hand. 
What's wealth or power or station to her now 
When her most precious heirloom has since fled? 



Echoes of Democracy 47 

THE DESERT LAND 

Forlorn I stood lost in the desert world, 
While drifting sands piled round me in vast dunes 
And darkness as from some dark sepulchre 
Appalled my soul with its oppressive gloom. 
Nor little comfort was there to be found, 
Oases were now one wild waste and stretched 
On bleak, in desolate monotony 
Unhabited and uninhabitable. 
What food there was, was bitter with rank airs 
And nauseated men to gaze thereon, 
Springs, were polluted with the stench of blood, 
And where one gazed or paused there venomous 

things 
Came to him ; holy objects and bright thoughts 
Ne'er came to shed a light upon the brain. 
No matter how he called, there echoed back 
But ghoulish shrieks and fiendish threats in ragf. 

Men there were in the valleys, but such men! 
Men who no more could reason in their minds. 
Who with their swords unsheathed in wild stampede 
Rushed on the nearest victim they beheld 
Gashing each other's breast with cursings loud. 
Oblivious to the fires which once burned there. 
Unmindful of the heart, which so long throbbed 
With high ambitions and ennobling love, 
Of elevating mind, where reason sat 
And shaped the destines of growing worlds. 
No work of man was spared, accomplishments 
Of centuries, the dreams of master minds, 
Things beautiful and noble, sacred things, 



48 Echoes of Democracy 

And holy heirlooms of the ages past 

Were trodden under foot as worthless dross, 

As if they were but dust blown by the wind 

And not the product of long patient thought 

The acme of advancement in the world. 

All civilization seemed mere mockery. 

Men's visions rose not from the carnage field. 

Rose not beyond the circuit of their gaze, 

The light had vanished from his soulless brains. 

On to the Westward where the lowering sun 
Cast its wierd rays upon a lurid stream, 

Lay the unburied dead in ghastly heaps, 
Half washed o'er by the stagnant flow of sand. 
O'er head the vultures circled darkling round 
And darted down to peck at cavernous eyes 
And tear the flesh from limbs half hid in sedge 
Or swollen by water seeped through miry sand?- 

Ail this men heeded not ; theirs was no more 
The dream of beauty and bright thoughts of home 
And fair discourse of fond relationships. 
But foul destruction seized their maniac brains 
That they but longed to curse and to destroy. 
Vile envy made them trample out all laws 
Of humankind ; all sense of right and wrong 
Became distorted by their flagrant views 
So they no longer prized another's life, 
But crushed it out as if a fragile thing 
Of no significant divinity, 
fierce hatred permeated all their deeds. 
That blood became the passion of their souls 
And murder was no longer called a crime 
But sanctioned by the men in high command. 



Echoes of Democracy 49 

I looked round in the gloom, pale with despair, 
While cold drops chilled the terror on my brow, 
And in this nightmare I burst out aloud. 
"My God! My God! hast thou forsaken us? 
Forsaken man and thy created world?" 
When lo, a voice came echoing in my ears 
Above the shrieks, which answered loud my call! 

"Despair thou not who dreamest yet fair dreams 
Amidst the gloom of a chaotic world. 
Such visions are but truths, rock bottom truths, 
Which still survive when mad upstarts are quelled. 
The dead there, dying as the beasts, yet live 
And how they live depends on how they fought, 
If for oppression or for liberty, 
If marshalled on the side of right or wrong. 
If zealous to upbuild or to destroy. 
Who brought this hell on earth, darkening the 

gleam 
Of civilization's upward proud advance 
Shall still be thrust in deeper hell than this 
And groan out their existence in mad throes. 
Think thou of brighter visions which have been. 
And of the greater things, which are to be, 
The present may but madden thy poor mind " 

The voice ceased ; multitudinous shrieks arose 
From out of the valley ; shrieks of desperate men 
In their last effort to survive or fall, 
And shuddering I breathed the swooning air 
Not knowing where for refuge I should turn. 



50 Echoes of Democracy 

BUTTERFLIES 

Bright golden wings, chameleon-colored wings, 
Adorned with hues of flower, field, and wood, 
White, yellow, crimson, pink vermillion, brown; 
Illumined with the tints of sky and sea. 
Blue, purple, gray, and shades of greenish tinge, 
Whither so joyously? Whither away? 

Dear childhood days, gay unencumbered days, 

As buoyant as the lambent butterfly, 

Which oft young revelers roused from nesting 

flower, 
As full of glee as is the summer sky 
In which the sunlit colors flit and sail 
Whither so rapidly? Whither away? 

Sweet, youthful dreams, uncurled, fantastic dreams 
As fervent as the gaudy wings are bright. 
Which lure the dreamer over moor and mead, 
Utopian as the gauzy wings are frail, 
Which oft the oriole crushes in his beak. 
Whither so lingerly? Whither away? 

Fond youthful hopes, etherial, ardent hopes, 

Inspiring as the perfume bearing breeze, 

Which wafts these fairies o'er the flower)^ field. 

Alluring as the rose to wandering bee, 

Which aims for it avoiding brier and weed 

Whither so tristfully? Whither away? 

Bright golden wings, chameleon-colored wings, 
Like childhood days, gay, unencumbered, free, 



Echoes of Democracy <,l 

Could we feel less the weight of woe-filled years, 
And keep akindled exuberant flame, 
For from time's bourne a voice sounds forth anon, 
"Whither so solemnly? Whither away?" 

THE UNKNOWN REALM 

Dew on a rose is music crystallized, 

As moonbeams on a balmy summer night 

Dancing upon the bosom of the lake 

Keep secret watches for fairies' delight. 

The mother fondling her young babe to rest 

Unconsciously awakens the soul of song, 

But hate! A fiery song of hate! Ah me, 

The devil chants such ditties for his throng. 

Does not the whiteness of the lily sing 

Unto the rosy rays im.pearled in dew? 

Docs not the greenness of the murmuring pine 

Make music to the skies celestial blue? 

Does not the ocean's melancholy roar 

Inchant the mountain's grandeur with its flow? 

I know not in what rosy realms is found 

The theme for song where hate its fangs doth show. 

Does not humanity's redeeming hand 
Reach forth across the seas, when unforeseen 
Catastrophe swoops down on some lone land 
And hurls destruction o'er its valleys green? 
Docs not the sun smile on the jungled wastes 
As gently as on kultur's heathen blare? 
He who with ruthless heart chants hymns of hate, 
Siiuns nature's music for the devil's choir. 



52 Echoes of Democracy 

FAMINE 

Oh, montrous spectre who with burning breath 
Makes the wind hot as if from desert regions 

blown, 
The wind, which puts the withering blight in head- 
ing wheat. 
And makes the morning glorj^ earlier close 
Its lily chalice 'gainst the scorching blast, 
Who dries the fountains at their very source, 
That e'en the birds flit round with parched beak, 
Oh have a mercy lest thy talons lift 
Joy like a diamond from its nestling breast, 
And leave but darkness, dearth and misery. 

Cold with its blue-hued, chattering chill 
Can clap its pinching hands together still 
And start the glow of warmth through frozen veins ; 
Heat yet can dip its feverish head 
Into the coolness of a bubbling spring 
And poverty can tease unwilling alms 
From overly complacent selfishness. 
But with thee come a dull, impoverished cold. 
Which radiating fires cannot make glow with 

warmth ; 
A feverish heat from which no shady springs 
Can purge the false, unnatural flush ; 



Echoes of De?twcracy 53 

A ghastly poverty, which shoves aside 
All glamor from the haughtiness of pride. 
It is the subdued fever of despair. 

Darkling the vultures hover o'er thy head, 
Dark as the cloud from which their pinions sprang, 
And watch thy skeleton hands winnow the chaff, 
From which some fruitful kernels may yet fall. 
New harvests reaped are not from sprouting seeds, 
Which bring the golden grain and mellow fruit, 
But are the propagations of the soul, 
Bedaggered hearts and holiest bonds impaled. 



WHICH? 

One reaches out his terrible, mailed list 
To strike down nations, nothing sacred, meek 
Can stay it from the end its might doth seek. 
No tender eyes, no tears, no pleading, no trist. 
'J'he other to men's sorrowing soul doth list, 
No prayer too beggarly, no faith too weak 
No eyes too tearful and too wan no cheek 
But what his cheer doth penetrate the mist. 
One name shall be symbolic of fierce hate 
Through all the ages yet interned by time 
Despised traditions for men to relate. 
The other exalted with a light sublime, 
Will be the hero of a nobler fate 
Forever lauded by legend and rhyme. 



54 Echoes of Democracy 

TO FRANCE 

Out of the heart of sunlight's golden glow 
Hope flashed, that steeled the stought unbending 

will, 
And trembling fear, which hides its pallid face, 
When danger looms before its cowering eyes, 
No more sought darkness its blanched cheek to hide, 
But was transformed into a fearful might, 
Which sweeps away all barriers from its path 
Like cornered beast, which fights unto grim death. 

The gift returns again unto the giver 
As water from the ocean seeks again 
The salty depths when freed from vaporous mists. 
As mercy may rebuke hate's citadel 
By soulful pleading of a radiant smile. 
And make it float a banner from its towers 
Proclaiming high resolved nobility. 
With not a thought of threatened coercion 
So Lafayette thy boost for liberty 
Flowered forth a thousand fold in hundred ways, 
Now rises in this crucial hour and gives 
Its hands across the ocean to its protege 
Full consecrated to its heritage, 
To battle for oppressed humanity 
As thou dids't fight for freedom formerly. 



Echoes of Democracy 55 

ON THE RECAPTURE OF JERUSALEM 

Over the forehead of the Moslem night 
Swims the new star with its celestial beam, 
Through thousand years of darkness comes the 

gleam, 
Of fulfilled prophecies of blessed light. 
Oh centuries of bliss, when angels bright. 
The halos of their pinions oft did stream 
O'er sacred quiet of the enchanted dream 
Reflected from the holy roof top's height. 
The resurrection of a vanquished race, 
Fortold in tablets ages long ago, 
Beams like a full blown rose in the embrace 
Of faith's white fingers, trembling and aglow. 
With exultation of the divine grace, 
Which makes long cherished hopes unbudded, blow. 

TO HARNEY PEAK 

Suns rise and set, the seasons come and go, 
Morn laughs at poppied indolence of night, 
And night blinks at morn's sudden flood of light, 
Which through the sable folds its gold doth show. 
Winds drive the rain clouds by the lightning's 

glow, 
And frosty cloudlets scatter crystals bright 
From chilly spaces of unmeasured height. 
Flowers bloom and fade, men rise and are laid 

low. 
But thou. Oh hoary peak, where is the eye. 
That saw thy form upheaved into the blue? 



56 Echoes of Democracy 

Where is the ear that heard the echoing sky 
Roar back thy birth groans from its azure hue' 
Long after this fierce struggle's faintest cry 
Thou will'st see nations fall and rise anew, 

THE SNOW FALL 

Oh fluttering wings of angels what affront 
Hast made thee shed thy feathers crystal white f 
What demonstration of the starless night 
Hast made thee quiver with its bold address? 
Surely, beyond the clouds, the stars still press 
Their old affections with no thought to fright. 
And suns yet, look on thee in keen delight 
With the same ardent fervor they were wont. 
Or is this fierce clamor here below, 
Where men's hot curses singe the frightened soul 
That gives thee this rude paralytic blow? 
Is it the demon in his villain role 
Of holy messenger with feigned halo 
That makes thee shed old garb for a new whole? 

THEY SHALL NOT PASS! 

They shall not pass! How like a bursting flame, 
Escaped from gloomy dungeon's deep despair, 
It leaped into the bleakness of night's air, 
Electrifying souls as once the name 

Of simple, rustic maid like lightning came 
And filled despairing hearts with visions fair 
And victory like a radiant jewel rare 
Flashed from her sword and routed foes in shame. 



Echoes of Democracy 57 

Upon that fiery phrase, the destiny 

Of future worlds and unh'ved empires hang. 

In distant ages when men scrutiny 

The sources whence civilzation's new soul sprang, 

Tours still will raise a welcomed rhapsody 

While Marne and Verdun '11 full voiced be sang. 

TO THE THRUSH 

Oh glorious bujst of song from yon green brake, 
Oh wondrous rift of heaven from your ash bough, 
Immortal thrilling, which on feverish brow 
Doth swift the anguish dews of fever slake. 
In this glad hour when golden sun beams break 
Their magic hues on drifting clouds, aglow 
With serene hush of Hesperus rising slow, 
'Tis glorious still from dreams of death to wake. 
The world is thine, oh bird, tis all thine own, 
While fitful we rise 'gainst a terrible throng, 
Thy voice is not alarmed by bugles blown, 
No monarch censors thy glad evening song, 
No vandals hurl thee from thine ivied throne 
Nor dost thou tremble at the ruthless strong. 

TO THE MOON 

Oh dazzling empress on your silver throne. 
Attended by the Pleiades sisters seven, 
Who deck thy crown with gems of jeweled heaven, 
Ne'er with such beauty has't through dark clouds 

shone. 
Bewitching shepherdess, thy flocks alone, 
Adrifting with their silvery fleeces even 



58 Echoes of Democracy 

To illimitable pastures, where dews nectars leven, 
I gaze enraptured, Hark! What rising groan? 
I call thee queen and yet this is a time. 
When thrones fall trembling at a subject's glance, 
When it is not good grace in passionate rhyme 
Mad monarch's moribund Lares to enhance, 
When slightest scoff at freedom seems a crime, 
But whom would not thy magical charms entrance ? 

TO THE EAGLE 

Piercing the clouds with calm majestic wing 

Thou soarest from thy lofty mountain throne, 

Leaving behind the heat and feverish groan, 

Which from the fitful throng beneath doth spring. 

What peace those airs must to thy being bring. 

What wild excelsior from the heaven blown, 

What mad intoxications must be known 

Aloft from hot congestion's battling. 

A monarch, but no craven monarch thou, 

Thy battles are fought by thy might alone, 

No winged battalions wait thy nodding brow. 

Which to destruction by thy word are thrown. 

A king, yet to which none in bondage bow. 

The peaks are free for those who would them own. 

OUT OF THE OLD 

Out of the old new worlds full fledged shall spring. 

So ever out of desolation's gloom, 

A golden harvest flowereth forth full bloom 

As if our teen was shade of angel's wing. 

Does not the seed decay that it might bring 

New generations from eternal doom? 



Echoes of Democracy 59 

What visions must before the mother loom 
As birth pangs bring death closely hovering. 
Cerulean skies will still shine on as blue, 

Bright trembling with the happy hearts of morn, 
Night's slumbers sealed with cooling flush of dew. 
Will still fall sweetly on sad hopes forlorn. 
Out of the fiendish heart of hate, a new 
Uplifting love in fair realms shall be born. 

IN THE COLD 

Out in the cold he sleeps, the dreary cold. 
Sleeps with the stars, beneath the moonless sk;\ . 
The winds breathe softly with a wailful sigh. 
Breathe o'er the grasses which the tomb enfold. 
Such is his first night in the dreary cold; 
His first night's slumber 'neath the open sky, 
Deep in the ground, beneath his Maker's eye. 
While we sit by the lamplight as of old. 
The grief we heralded, we cannot know, 
Our spirit too is hovering where he sleeps, 
And thus subdued the tears forget to flow. 
Death's shudder o'er the broken spirit creeps, 
When some kind friend is suddenly stricken low, 
A loved one, takes our spirit where he sleeps. 

TO VENICE 

Fair vision, raised by some enchanter's wand 
From ruby tints of corals crystal clear. 
Bright jewel in proud Neptune's emerald ear 
Round which the foaming locks curl and expand, 
Charmed miracle sprang from the magic strand, 



6o Echoes of Democracy 

Where no rude sound burst in upon the cheer 
Of heaving waters, where quiet doth not fear 
To stretch himself upon the golden sand, 
May ruthless Huns with lust wild in their eyes 
Not sink their fangs into thy beauty's side, 
May from the sea the guardian serpent rise 
That rose when Laocoon rebuked her pride 
And strike in trembling foe a wild surmise, 
When crushing coils enfold their martial stride. 

OLD GLORY 

My heart is thrilled, my soul profoundly stirred 
When I behold Old Glory's folds unfurled, 
What's more divinely noble in the world 
Than thy stripes streaming in the air unblurred? 
Emblem of justice, light whose beams long lured 
Downtrodden pilgrims, from their own lands hurled 
By dread oppression, which about them curled 
Obnoxious bondage not to be endured. 
Wave on Old Glory, wave thy virtues wide, 
Power's not thy glory, right and justice thine, 
When liberty lies bleeding, woe betide 
The tyrant that shall not his greed confine! 
For million men will spring up to thy side. 
Ready to die that right may brighter shine. 



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